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Thursday, July 26th, the first day of the Euromasters Regatta 2018 at the 1972 Olympic rowing course in Munich. We’re here. This is it. The end of a long season of training and racing. The final regatta before the vacation break.

I had to be realistic. A busy (and deciding) year at work and time invested in the rowsandall.com site has cost me quite some training hours. Stravistix tells me I am 25% behind in training hours since January 1, compared to 2016 and 2017.

The regatta itself seemed 25% bigger than the previous edition. More boats. More people. More food stalls. More merchandise. An extra race day. Higher temperatures (highs well above 30C, not a lot of cooling off in the night).

I had been realistic and not signed up for too many disciplines. Here’s the back of my accreditation card with my schedule for the four days:

Day 1

At 14:21 in the afternoon, Kazi and I lined up in lane 1. I was nervous. If there was a race with the biggest chance of finishing first or second, this was it. It was a strong field, but Kazi and I row a nice double, and Kazi’s season is strong. We were lined up against Exeter on lane 2 (this year’s Henley Masters winners in the C category, as I was told on Twitter), our friends from Bohemians Praha, Germany, Austria and Spain.

Out of the start we were slow, but we quickly recovered and after 250m we were in second position, half a length behind Exeter.

At the 500m mark the field broke apart in two halfs, with Exeter and us in front, then water, and then the rest. This happened just after I started our attack on Exeter with about 600m to go. The attack brought us almost level, but we went past them only after the 500m.

They tried to come back but must have been slowing down more than we did. We defended our position. Their attack lasted for about ten strokes, and we could row the final 150m being certain of our win. True, Exeter was just half a length behind us but we had some reserves still, as the stroke rate chart confirms. Yes, I had to rate up to hold our position, but with Kazi behind me I could have gone up to 40 spm without the boat falling apart.

So the first race was a win! The time was not great, but we were rowing into a headwind, and times in Munich are in general not very fast. It’s a slow course.

Here’s the video of our row (forward to 1:28:00 where our race starts).

On Thursday evening, Romana and I did a quick 4km row to reset ourselves after the choppy adventure of Monday.

Day 2

The draw had been pretty strange for all races. On Thursday’s M 2x C race, we were up against Bohemians Prague, a double that I have raced already twice this year. On Friday’s M 1x C races, it was even worse. In one final, the two Bohemians guys were racing each other, and in the other final Kazi and I were.

Our fan clubs had given us orders to occupy the first and second position. Kazi had beaten me in Trebon at the Czech Masters. I knew he was a hard nut to crack, and I was sure there were some other fast scullers in the race.

There was only one option, perhaps. And that was to go out fast and be ahead of Kazi after 500m. He has given up in such positions in the past.

There we were, lining up at the stake boats, Kazi in lane 2 and I was next to him in lane 3.

Attention – Go! We were both very well out of the start and after 200m, it was Kazi slightly in front and me rowing in second position.

I tried very hard to stay close to him, but unfortunately he had a really strong day and just steamed away, creating a boat length of light between us with 500m to go. I was also busy defending my second position against a Sankt Petersburg from Russia.

My third 250m was really bad. I saw power values going to 280-290W and I just didn’t find a way out of that. Some steering issues as well. The Russian guy passed me. With 250m to go I refound myself and I passed the Russian again. Romana told me later that Kazi in front was now really struggling with the consequences of going out fast as well. Apparently, we were catching up fast.

Unfortunately for me, the Russian guy caught up and beat me on the finish line:

A great race, except for a badly executed third 250m. Perhaps the penalty for going out too fast? The times were slow because of head wind.

The charts are quite clear.

Earlier that day, Romana came fifth in the double. Here’s a picture of Romana and Veronika going to the start:

When my racing was done, Romana and I went swimming in a nearby lake. That was really nice. Clean, cool water. After that, Romana still had a quad to race:

The girls were second after a strong Austrian crew.

Day 3

At 8:12, Romana and Veronika rowed a great race in the double. They were third, but against some really strong crews, and their technique and race strategy were exemplary.

On Friday evening, Kazi had been teasing me with his medal from the single. Well, on Saturday I had another chance to row the single. This time I was up against people I didn’t know, although I had heard that Carsten Brzeski from Wiking Berlin was pretty good (had won the C 1x a day before, one heat before us).

This time I decided to adhere to my prescribed power levels and ignore the other rowers. With 750m to go I was last. Between 750m and 500m I passed two boats and rowed in third position. Brzeski was out quite far, but Halle was a bit closer. I sprinted the entire final 300m at 36spm and almost caught up. Still a third place:

Average power was still only 300W. I had hoped it to be 20 Watt higher. Need to train more consistently.

This 1x race was also the one with the funniest comment shouted at me from the shore. Radek, one of my 4x crew cycled alongside me, together with Romana. With me rowing in third position and the winner far in front, he shouted: “Save some energy!” right at the moment when I rated up to 36spm. Romana commented that I apparently didn’t listen to Radek.

That 4x- race was almost immediately after the single. The start times were just 65 minutes apart. I quickly changed dress to Hodonin colors (this regatta requires uniform dressing), drank some water and had some sugar.

In the quad, I rowed on bow seat, replacing one of the Hodonin crew that had come third (after us) at the Czech Masters. I really enjoyed this race. We were in front at the start and then rowed away from the Germans. The Italians were a bit too far in front for us to catch, especially as Radek is a less experienced rower, so we couldn’t go all crazy with stroke rate in the final stages of this race. Second place at this regatta is not bad for this crew.

Day 4

As we were scheduled to race at 15:46, we had a long day of waiting in the heat. We spent the time watching other races from the grand stand.

Fabrizio Tucci, one of the winning crew of our quad race, was lined up against Romana and me in the C category Mix 2x. They really looked confident at the start, and so did the Leicester/Nautilus Anglo-Dutch combination.

Our start sequence wasn’t executed perfectly but we were still the first boat after 10 strokes, so I kept the stroke rate high for another ten, which gave us a lead of one length.

In the next 250m, we built out the lead by another length. Our rowing was not the best. Romana was catching slightly early, which I tried to anticipate, but that resulted in us going in a pretty high stroke rate. I shouted “Calm down” but Romana understood “Go!”. So she started to push even more.

We were leading by two lengths and, this being the fourth day of racing, I was really getting tired. We got awfully close to the lane buoys but we managed to steer back again.

The stroke rate chart tells the story. No power tens. No sprinting. Just keep going at 35/36 spm.

After loading the double on the trailer, we went for a swim, and by 5pm we were on the road driving back to Brno, where we arrived at 11pm. And that, dear readers, is the end of the sprint season. Time for vacation. I am looking forward to taking a two to three week break from rowing and structured training plans.

This was a 10 day interval between the Czech Open Masters and the Euromasters Regatta in Munich.

On Monday, July 16th, we washed boats, rigged them and put them in the racks. No training.

On Tuesday, I did a 50 minute weights session.

On Wednesday morning, I went out to the castle on a Steady State row with Eduard.

Nice rowing.

On Friday, July 20, Romana and I did a 2x(6×45″/45″)/5min row in the double.

If I remember well, this was a nice row. I failed to make any notes for this workout.

On Saturday, we rowed “mini sprints” alongside another Masters Mix 2x. These were 7-10 strokes full pressure and high rate, alternated with two minutes rest. High rate is coming together really well now.

On Monday, July 23, we did another session in the double. We should not have done it. It was windy and there was a nasty chop. We just did a few practice starts and short race pace intervals, but the boat was “dead”.

After that, we loaded the small trailer which would go to Hodonin on Tuesday, where our boats were put on the big trailer together with the boats of Hodonin and Uherske Hradiste. It’s more economical to tow one big trailer with boats for three clubs than to arrive in Munich with three half empty trailers.

On Wednesday, we drove to Munich in five and a half hours, checked in to the hotel, and waited for the Hodonin trailer to arrive. It came at 4:15pm, and by then the boat area was already chock full of boats. We found a quiet place in the shade behind the accreditation building:

On Thursday morning, Kazi and I did a quick row in the double, to make sure all was set for our first race on the regatta, the Masters Men 2x in the C category.

There are a few people missing on this photo, taken on our Friday evening get together in Trebon, but this group of members of CVK Brno, plus a few “affiliates” who have a license to row with us, form the core of the group that was responsible for the largest number of starts on this big regatta.

One of the many Mix 8+ races being started (photo Natascha Kral)

Is it a big regatta? Yes. We are not aware of it any more, but our friends from Ruderverein Donaubund (Vienna) do admiringly remark on their blog that this is one of the few regattas in the world where it is taken for normal that there are 17 entries in the Mixed 8+ category. Similarly, in the Men’s Single category, there were 53 entries. Mixed 2x had 39 entries. And the Men’s 2x had 32 entries, which brings us to my first race on Sunday.

A few hours before the race, I was sitting in the Ostrava rowing club tent with a few friends and reading them the lineup for my race. Lane 1: Kazimir & Mitas (nr 1 and 2 in my 1x race respectively). Lane 2: Novotny and Franz from Brandys. Lane 3: Prihoda and Urban from Pardubice. Lane 4: Schreiner & Helbig from Vienna/Graz. Lane 5: Kral & Milodanovic (fastest time in the single with 3:30) from Vienna. Lane 6: Cernak and Roosendaal from Ostrava/Brno. When I finished reading, it was silent for a few moments.

With an average age of 49.5 years, we were the oldest of the field. Medal candidates were in lanes 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Of all the doubles races, this seemed to be the heat with the most closely matched boats.

Because we hadn’t rowed much together this year, except for a less than ideal race at the Vienna International Regatta, Vojtech and I had done a 30 minute training with a few practice pieces in the morning. All was well.

There are never enough practice starts, so just before the race, we rowed up to the 2k start line, turned the boat and did a practice start. It turned out to be one of the top 3 starts I had ever done in a double. It was so sharp, well timed and fast that there was no chance we would produce a better start at the race, even though the Trebon lake was as flat as a mirror on this hot Sunday morning.

Turned out the race start was good. Very good. But of course not as good as that practice start.

It also turned out that all 6 boats had a pretty good start. First 200 meters and nobody was moving, except Mitas & Nedoba who were slightly in front. Then Pardubice started to lag behind a bit. With 500m to go Mitas & Nedoba were leading slightly and there were three boats chasing them, including ourselves. So we all started accelerating.

Well, all except the unfortunate Viennese double Kral & Milodanovic. It turned out Mr Kral had not completely tightened his wing rigger and it was starting to come lose, so they were limiting the power and stroke rate.

The pictures show Petr and Kazimir leading, with us behind them in lane 6. I don’t know where we were relative to to Schreiner & Helbig on lane 4. I didn’t want to look. I just kept increasing the rate, just as I had done in two races on Saturday.

We ended up rowing the entire final 150m at 40spm, trying to close the gap with Mitas & Nedoba and hopefully also pushing our bow in front of Schreiner & Helbig.

The speaker announced a win for Mitas & Nedoba, a second place for us and a third for the Vienna/Graz double. So we cheered for the winners, waited until they received their gold medals, and then landed on the medal pontoon to receive the silver medals.

Waiting for verdict (photo Natascha Kral)

At that point, the ceremony was interrupted by the jury announcing that they were studying the finish video.

A few minutes later, there was still no verdict, but they did invite the Austrian double to land on the medal pontoon as well. I wasn’t sure if that was a bad sign for us, but somehow I was expecting my luck to be balanced, so after the 0.09 sec lead in the 4x on Saturday and our 0.5 second win in the mixed double, would this be our turn to be 0.1 second behind them?

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Turns out that it was a dead heat.

The official results show it clearly. Both boats were exactly 2.79 seconds behind the winners, and both boats would receive the silver medal. According to the regatta speaker, we were the first to achieve this since 1966. I bet the video system wasn’t as advanced back in 1966.

What a race! We had good fun with the Austrian crew receiving our medals. And then we had to row back to the club fast, because Vojtech was also rowing a double with a 82 year old local guy, the oldest participant to the regatta. It was probably a great cooling down for him.

After that it was busy time for me. I hopped on the bike and rode back to our hotel, where I picked up the car to park it closer to the venue. Then I prepared the single for transport. All in very hot temperatures. Then, finally, it was time to watch the MW 4x- with Romana take a bronze medal:

My final race of the day was in the eight. There were 7 eights in the C category, so we were divided over two heats, with two B boats added to ours. In principle, we could ignore the B boats in lanes 1 and 2, and focus on beating the other C crews, but our goal was of course to pass the finish line first in this last event.

Because of back injuries and vacations, our Brno eight was rowing with four substitutes from rowing club Hodonin. We had Jan Brazda, Milan Viktora, and Kazimir Nedoba, as well as Renata Nedobova, Kazi’s wife and Milan’s daughter, coxing. She was a great coxswain by the way. With a lovely and clear voice she announced dreadful things like “power tens”, but she also gave us info on the relative position of our competitors, on top of calling the catch and finish for timing during the entire race.

We were great out of the start but one of the young B boats decided to take the lead. In the final 500m, we did catch up with them but it was not enough. We tried a final desperate scramble for the finish line, but that destroyed our rhythm entirely and probably slowed us down. Still, a gold medal for winning the C race.

Photo by Natascha Kral

It was a great weekend. Here’s the score:

Three times gold, one bronze and one silver. Not bad. And here are a few random pictures from Saturday that emerged on Facebook today, all by Natascha Kral:

This is it. The end of the sprint season is slowly arriving. This is my #2 race of this season, the Czech Open National Championships for Masters. My #1 race is the Euromasters in Munich, in the last weekend of July.

It’s actually hard to tell which race is tougher. The Euromasters regatta attracts more rowers, but that also means that races are divided in multiple heats, and that means you are not always up against the fastest rowers. The Czech Open attracts rowers from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Germany, but especially from the Czech Republic there are a few Masters rowers who only compete in the Czech Republic, and they are pretty hard to beat.

I had three races scheduled for Saturday, the single at 11:40, the quad at 15:00, and the Mix 2x at 17:40. The weather was gorgeous. This is how the lake looked before the start of the racing, and when I raced my single, it was pretty much the same:

Race 1 – MM 1x C

Starting with a race in the single is always hard. It’s the boat type I train in most often, it is closely watched by everyone, and it’s the first race of the regatta. This one requires a very thorough warming up and strong nerves. By the time it is time to boat you see a lot of very serious looking masters rowers walking around the venue. “You look like you are about to go in front of the firing squad,” I heard one of the single scullers being told. The guy answered that he might prefer the firing squad.

I considered myself an outsider. My training has been less consistent that I planned, mainly because my work and travel has become busier than anticipated, which is a good thing for me but it conflicts with training consistency. Also, I have done fewer “practice” regattas this year, so missing some race sharpness.

After a long warming up, we lined up at the start. I had a nice lane 4, with the two strongest competitors Petr Mitas on lane 6 and Kazimir Nedoba on lane 3. A strong rower also was Alexander Farkas from Piraten Wien, who had beat me by 8 seconds at the regatta in Vienna.

After a strong start I found myself leading for the first 250m, but Petr and Kazi were just a few meters behind me. In the second 250m, as I was slowing down a bit to find my sustainable pace, they rowed through me. With 600m to go, I rated up a bit, but Kazi was fending off pretty well. Then, with 300m to go, Alexander started to push pretty hard. I guess he wanted a bronze medal. And I didn’t want him to take it, so I rated up again. That brought both of us a bit closer to Kazi, but he managed to fight both of us pretty well. It also seemed that Alexander was not pushing any more, so with 150m to go pretty much nothing was happening any more in this race.

So here is the end result. A bronze for me. I think it was the maximum achievable in the circumstances, and looking at the time, I am pretty happy with the result. The 3:42 would have been competitive in the Masters A and B categories as well, although the fastest time of the day was an amazing 3:30 by Marko Milodanovic from Donaubund Vienna.

Here are the power, pace and stroke rate charts.

You can clearly see the points where I upped the stroke rate. The 310W is 10W above my target, and looking at the data I am wondering whether I can gain a bit by not dropping the power and stroke rate as much after the initial 150m as I did in this race. Good preparation for Munich. In one of the races there, I will be up against Kazi again.

Race 2 – MM 4x B

My second race of the day was postponed by one hour because of a thunderstorm approaching the lake. For about 30 minutes, the lake changed from mirror flat to heavy wind and waves with white caps. Racing was suspended for one hour , postponing everything.

The lake didn’t return to its magical mirror flat quality after the thunderstorm, but when we were lining up for the quads, it was pretty rowable.

Five boats at the start and on paper no one was a clear winner. I was sitting on stroke seat. I have raced one quad earlier this year, as had Tomas and Eduard, but Ondrej was new to this crew. And because of my business travel, the only training we had together was the row to the start. In other words, our training attendance was 100%.

On our practice start, we lost one of the red C rings above the oarlock, so Eda on 3 was rowing with a slightly misaligned oarlock on his left hand scull.

Our first race start was called back for a false start by Blesk on lane 1, next to us. The second start was okay from the false start perspective, but in the fourth stroke of our start sequency, there was a big vibration going through the boat. Then I heard Ondrej shout “OK I have it” and we continued. After the race, I learned that he had lost his right scull but managed to grab it in the air.

With 500m to go we were five boats in one line. We may have been leading by a bit, but it was hard to see from the stroke position.

With one minute to go we upped the stroke rate, and we kept increasing it. With 100m to go we had passed Hodonin and were closing the gap on Blesk.

We kept increasing the stroke rate. In the final 10 strokes I was doing 38 or 39 spm and we just kept going like crazy.

Beep. We crossed the line.

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The speaker announced Blesk as the winner, we shouted our three hurrays for the winner and turned the boat, waiting for our turn to receive the silver medal. The commentator was going on about Tomas Karas (Olympic silver medal in Athens in the M4x) who was part of the Blesk crew. Blesk were getting their gold medals and hand shakes. Then, the speaker announced that the jury had come down from the tower to tell him that they were still studying the finish video.

Then, he announced us as the winner. Blesk didn’t believe it and demanded to see the video still. The Blesk stroke disappeared into the finish tower, only to turn up a few moments later admitting that they hadn’t won.

Their gold medals were taken back and they received the silver. And then it was our turn to receive the gold. We had won by a margin of 0.09 seconds! With our boat speeds, that is about 40cm.

The chart tells the story of the stroke rate. Average spm over the race almost 38spm. This was a great race. Exhausting also.

Winning Quad

Race 3 – MMix 2x C

Another strong field of C rowers. The Dekanovsky’s, the Prihoda’s, the Cernaks and us all being married couples (imagine the pressure). The Cernak’s were feeling strong after a recent international win at Trakai Sprints. The Dekanovsky’s had upgraded their boat, and the Prihoda’s were considered strong outsiders.

Initially, the race looked quite different. We started pretty strong, but Pardubice (the Prihoda couple) just jumped away from all the other boats. Over on lane five, they just disappeared from my vision. I was aware they were in front, but they seemed very far away. We were rowing hard to fence of the Dekanovsky couple, and over on lane six the Cernak couple was about level with us.

With 500m to go, Jan Dekanovsky started a push and they just rowed through us. We seemed to have no answer. I was already rowing 35spm and we seemed to have a good rhythm.

Then I started to push a little and we got back a little. Still, it looked like we were going to end in fourth place.

I was counting strokes, and every five strokes I increased the stroke rate by a small bit.

This killed the Cernaks who were now falling behind.

Three boats storming towards the finish line. I kept increasing the stroke rate. Romana on bow was following flawlessly and we kept pushing.

I didn’t look at the other boats any more and just kept pushing. I noticed how we managed to take back the Dekanovsky boat, but I was totally unaware that the Prihoda boat was now behind us. I had to listen to the speaker to hear the result. We won! By half a second.

I was still breathing hard while standing on the medal pontoon.

The stroke rate chart give you a good impression of how the race went. When we arrived back at the venue, we got cheers from our club mates. They had all cheered us from about the 500m mark, and one lady apparently had commented that “she wouldn’t want to sit on bow in my boat”. Yes, it was tough, but Romana was able to follow and we pushed through them. The Dekanovsky couple was happy as well. The Prihodas were not so happy and the Cernaks were silent.After this pretty heavy Saturday it was time to relax. We went to a nice fish restaurant with the entire CVK Brno representation, and after that we went to the beer brewery to meet the other rowers. We also met the Blesk quad there, and of course we had to buy them a few beers.

Wow, it’s been a long time since my last post! The reason for the radio silence is that there was just a huge amount of things going on.

On Sunday, July 8th, I did a nice workout in the single, rowing alongside a mixed quad. The mixed quad is one of our irons in the fire for the Czech Masters. We did 15 strokes on / 15 off series.

Of course, they were a bit faster than I, so I had to catch up a bit during the 15 off. In the second series I took a bit of a head start and we finished nicely rowing next to each other. I think the workout helped both of us getting sharp for the racing. Here they are collecting their bronze medal from the Czech Masters Open:

You notice that they are not rowing in our club unis. This quad has been training regularly since winter, and they have their own pink unis, hand made by Darina (bow seat). (There is also a rumor that they call each other “girls” when on the water, but they are not confirming that.)

Here are my data for the workout:

And that, dear readers, was the last training before a long hiatus. On Monday morning, at 3am, I departed to the airport, flying to Brussels for meetings. On Monday evening, I flew from Brussels to Toulouse, arriving in my Toulouse hotel room at 20 past midnight.

I intended to do a workout on Tuesday morning, and selected a hotel with a C2 erg so I could do some (indoor) rowing, but I woke up with just enough time to have breakfast and go to the office. In the evening, I had a business dinner, combined with watching the Belgium – France football (soccer) game. I was rooting for Belgium, but surrounded by French fans.

On Wednesday morning, I headed to the airport at 5am, so again no time for training. Spent most of the day in meetings in Madrid, Spain. At the end of the day, I headed home. The exercise was a sprint from the last D gate to the last C gate to catch my connecting flight at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I was in bed in Brno at 1am, Thursday morning.

On Thursday, I had a full day of meetings.

On Friday, I worked from home in the morning, and then Romana and I drove to Trebon, the place where the Czech Open Masters Championships are held. I did a pre-race workout in the single. The core of the workout was a 4x250m/250m at race pace. I am aiming at 300W of power. The challenge is to not go too far above that in the beginning of the race, because I know it will hit me back in the second half. I didn’t wear a heart rate monitor.

We did a workout in the quad. The quad was a ad hoc crew that we combined such that no rowers would stay on the shore. We rowed 4x2k, divided in various intervals. It wasn’t bad for an ad hoc crew.

Tuesday

A weights session of one hour.

Wednesday

The plan called for steady state but Romana and I were in the double and had a chance to do starts and short intervals against our Masters Men B 2x. It wasn’t bad at all. We were faster in the start compared to the young guys, and in the 20 and 30 Stroke pieces we managed to row next to them. We rated a lot higher than the guys, but I am not sure if they were able to rate up. It takes some time rowing together to rate up effectively.

I forgot to put on the heart rate sensor and the power is estimated values. Nice workout.

Thursday & Friday

We spent a day and a half in Prague. View on the city from the Strahov monastery.

On Friday we arrived around 2pm and I did go to the lake, but there was too much wind and I felt tired, so I skipped the session.

Saturday

In the double again with Romana. A week from now, we will be starting at the Masters Nationals (Czech Masters Open) in the mixed double. Unfortunately, I will be traveling for work early next week, so this is our final workout before the race. We did a 3km warming up, then a 750m at race pace, 3km steady and then 2x250m with 250m paddling.

This time I did wear the Heart Rate sensor but I don’t believe the values at all. Here is a comparison of the 750m and the 250m pieces:

The 250s were a bit more aggressive. All pieces rowed with a cross tailwind and unpleasant chop.

Today, the rowing club was closed for the annual Long Distance Swimming championship. That was a good opportunity to do some cross training, but instead I just rode my mountain bike to a pub and had a beer: